Television

Essel, Intel partner on digital content

NEW DELHI: The Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group has launched DMCL (Digital Media Convergence Ltd) as a company that will facilitate the availability of digital content in India.

Infotech major Intel will partner the Essel Group in this digital venture, according to senior Intel company executives at the ongoing FICCI Frames event in Mumbai.

DMCL, to be headed by Zee Telefilms president Abhijeet Saxena, will concentrate on acquiring, digitising and making available on various platforms a wide variety of content.

This content could be special interest content sourced from outside India for the Indian audience as well as Indian/Bollywood content for use in India and outside.

DMCL will also engage in creating special interest /niche content that will be of immense value to select audiences in India.

Announcing the initiative, Saxena said, “We have always been very conscious of offering the best in entertainment to our consumers. Keeping our sights on the future of entertainment in the digital new media scenario, we will be at the forefront of providing both new and existing content across various consumer gadgets.”

Dwelling on shaking hands with Intel, he added, “While selecting the technology and partner for implementation, performance and expertise in successful implementation was given prime consideration. As Intel is a domain specialist, we are very happy to collaborate with them for this effort. We are confident that we will have mutually beneficial partnership with Intel for this gigantic strategic initiative.”

Intel Corp launched its Intel Viiv technology platform for home entertainment devices at the CES show California in January 2006.

The Intel Viiv technology is designed to make it easier for people to download, view, manage and share digital entertainment on a variety of viewing screens and networked devices such as portable media players, digital TVs and routers.

The company is working to bring the Intel Viiv platform to India in the near future.

DMCL and Intel will work towards offering digital content over the Intel Viiv platform in India. DMCL will offer an agnostic platform, by being an aggregator (including doing re-purposing) for other content owners, starting with Zee Telefilms Ltd.'s content.

Intel will work with other players in the industry to introduce DMCL as an Intel Viiv content service provider in India. This joint industry supporting effort means that the consumers who procure Intel Viiv will get a ready service available on the platform for them to access information, entertainment and other services.

Essel Group has diverse national and global business interests, encompassing media programming, broadcast and distribution, specialty packaging, entertainment and trading.